I'll Tell You My Sins
by ImperiumWife
Summary: Ellie is all grown up, and it's time to share the story of her childhood with her fiance. My version of what happens after the "blue French horn incident" in the failnale. Trigger warnings for self-harm and depression.


A/N: So, I couldn't help myself. I had to write this story. It was inspired by a short one shot that Kayla (swarley and sparkles 5ever) wrote (I'm pretty sure it's in the story 'random ramblings' if you are interested), and I haven't been able to get the idea out of my head since. I was going to wait even longer to post it, but then I heard Take Me to Church by Hozier, and that fueled the writing even more. I will be posting lyrics from that song to the beginning of some of the chapters, and the title is even based off of one line.

Basically, this is my fix it fic. Yet, it's not a fix it fic. It's what I believe would truly happen if the failnale had actually taken place, and it includes a small section that I wrote the day after. It's very different from all of the other things I've written. There are trigger warnings for self-harm and depression. It's dark, but it's a path I very much wanted to explore. I hope that you stick with it.

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><p><em><strong>I'll Tell You My Sins <strong>_

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><p><strong>Chapter 1- It's Time<strong>

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><p><em>Take me to church<em>

_I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies_

_I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife_

_Offer me that deathless death_

_Good God, let me give you my life_

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><p>"Will you marry me?"<p>

"Yes."

It's a simple word, and she says it succinctly. It's not all that different from the way her mother answered her father all those years ago, but they'll never know that.

The tone afterwards, however, is much different from that of her parents, with both being in a state of excitement versus shock, so much so that she almost tackles him to the ground of the darkened patio.

Her dark brown curls fall down over her shoulders, as he helps her to a sitting position next to his strong frame.

As they catch their breath, leaning against the wall, she finally gets the chance to admire the ring.

"Hunter, this ring, it's so beautiful. How did you even afford this?" she questions, her bright blue eyes meeting his.

"Ellie, it's your mother's," is his succinct reply. She stares at him in shock.

"It can't be...she couldn't possibly still have this," she mumbles, her mind reeling. With everything she knows of her parents and her childhood, the thought of her still having this ring doesn't compute.

"She told me she wanted you to have it, and that you should have it. It's apparently from your father's family," he explains, stoking her back, trying to be there for her, even though he doesn't quite comprehend her panic.

"I know," she sighs. "He talked about it once." She leaves out the part that he lamented to her when she was just a young girl that he wished he'd never given it away, because she was a much more deserving girl, and that he thought it was gone forever. "I just... I can't believe she kept it all these years." She'd never, in her twenty-five years of life, had a reason to believe that her mother had kept the ring. She would have had so many reasons to believe otherwise.

"Why wouldn't she keep it?" He asks, trying to get his wonderful and loving new fiancée to talk. It wasn't like her to shut him out, yet now, she seemed as if she was in her own little world. "She loved your father, she told me she did. Just because he passed doesn't mean that her feelings would go away." Loved? Her mother and father hadn't been in love for years, and she sometimes wondered if they ever had been, with what they had done to each other.

"Hunter..." She tries to start exposing, but she can't make the words form on her lips. There was just so much he didn't know, so much she never shared about her tumultuous childhood. But now, now that she is wearing this ring, it's time.

"What?" he asks, and Ellie hesitates. "What? You know you can talk to me. This isn't one of those things you need to keep inside."

"I think... I think it's time I tell you the true story of my family." His hazel eyes, soft and caring, persuade her to go on. "My parents met in 2005. They were a part of the same circle of friends. They became something more than friends and then broke up and became friends again before finally getting engaged in 2012. They married six months later. Less than a year into their marriage, my mom got a job as a foreign correspondent and they traveled the world together."

"That sounds nice Elle. I don't get..."

"Please just let me finish," she interrupts, the rims of her eyes beginning to fill with tears. "This is going to be a hard enough story to tell as it is."

"Sorry," he apologizes, not fully understanding what he had done to hit such a nerve, but being sure to step out of her way just in case. "Go on."

"The honeymoon period didn't last forever," she explains. "Almost three years from the day of their wedding, they divorced."

"What?" he questions, his body flying forward in shock from the wall they are leaning against. "But, if I'm doing the math right, that would be 2015 or 2016. You weren't born until 2019." He continues to stare at her in shock, hoping that whatever she is going to say next will solve the disparity in his head.

"I know," she says, as she smiles weakly at him. "My parents divorced three years before my birth." He continues to stare, until a look of realization takes over. She's never really told him much about her childhood. All he really knew is that her father died when she was young. But she never explained, and he'd never had the heart to ask about him. There was much more to the story than he ever realized.

"Ellie, I'm sorry about going on earlier-"

"That's far from the end of the story."

"Oh," he mumbles.

"I didn't even know who my mom was during my childhood," she finally admits. It's more than she's ever shared with anyone she met in adulthood. It's one of those things about her she'd never share. Some things were meant to be private. But Hunter, well, if there was any advice she had gotten from her mother, it was that marriage involved communication, and lots of it. He had to know.

He throws her a questioning look, one that tells her that he's now really, really lost. But he'll get there. It just might take a while.

"I'm basically the product of a one night stand."

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><p>His life is pathetic. Here he is, a 44 year old man with no job, still picking up twenty year olds because he can't stop thinking about his ex-wife. He's the legitimate definition of a mess.<p>

And yet, he keeps letting it happen. She shows up drunk and horny at his door, they fuck, and she's gone when he wakes up. Sometimes, he doesn't even believe it's real. Sometimes he sees her every month. Sometimes it's almost a year. But like clockwork, every time she shows up in New York, she's there.

This time, it's like all the rest. He opens the door to find her standing there looking at him.

He wants to say "Robin, why the fuck are you here?" but the words don't come out. He lets himself get taken over by her body, taken over by his own primal instincts. He knows his brain should tell her no, that this thing they do every time she comes back into town just throws him into a downward spiral that takes him weeks to get out of. But he CAN'T. He's still deeply in love with her. So deeply in love he can't stop. He'll never be able to stop.

So he gives her what she wants, even though he's sure that for her it's just good sex. He doesn't let himself breakdown in front of her. He puts on his mask, and lets it there.

Of course, he wakes up the next morning, the only evidence of her presence there the night before is the rumpled pillowcase.

He promises himself that this is going to be the last time, but he knows it won't. As long as she shows up, he won't be able to resist.

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><p>She doesn't know why she keeps showing up like this. Maybe is that she can never find someone that comes quite as close to him in the sex department. Maybe it's because she wants to forget what she gave up for one night. But whatever the cause, it's an addiction. She can't return to New York without stopping to see him at least once.<p>

She regrets it every time. As soon as their bodies go back to being two, she feels the sinking in the pit of her stomach. She does her best to fall asleep, but it never happens, and she instead waits for him to fall asleep so she can play his old game. She feels guilty as hell, but her conflicting feelings won't allow her to stay in the place she once called home. They won't let her get comfortable. Because getting comfortable, well, that opens up too many doors she can't face.


End file.
